The trend of cyber attacks in Italy continues to grow also in 2021. From what emerges in the first report of 2021 on cyber threats in Italy prepared by the Exprivia Cybersecurity Observatory, in the period January-March 2021 they registered 349 events, between attacks, incidents and violations of privacy. This is a growth of 47% on the previous quarter and seven times more than in the first three months of 2020. One year after the outbreak of the pandemic that led to the massive spread of smart working and the increasingly frequent use of online services, cybercrime continues to strike often using unsophisticated techniques.
In the first quarter of 2021, the Exprivia Observatory – committed to spreading the culture of information security both in companies and among private citizens – detects a strong growth in attacks (+ 56% compared to the last quarter of 2020). Despite this, the average number of accidents, ie successful attacks, register a 18% decrease compared to the previous quarter, however remaining constant on average compared to the full year 2020. A significant increase continues to be recorded by the violations of privacy attested by the fines of the Guarantor, which mark a + 55% compared to the previous quarter.
According to the Exprivia Observatory, which takes into consideration 86 public sources, in these first months of 2021 Covid-19 is no longer the first issue used by hackers to target victims: the primacy is given to issues concerning the sphere of the processing of personal data, increasingly exposed online as a result of the ‘digital life’ conducted massively for more than a year. Following, always among the themes most exploited by cyber-criminals, online banking and Dad. “The first months of the year confirm an overall growth in cybercrime” affirms Domenico Raguseo, director of Cybersecurity Exprivia. “While on the one hand – he emphasizes – the attackers spend much more to design attacks, using increasingly sophisticated techniques, on the other hand the victims show a worrying lack of awareness of the risks“.
The issue – Raguseo warns – must necessarily be addressed both in terms of security governance and certification standards, in particular as far as it concerns the defense of industrial and IoT devices exposed on the network“. For the first time on the podium of the sectors most affected by cyber criminals appears the Software / Hardware one, with 98 events, almost fivefold compared to the previous quarter. These are phenomena that affect instant messaging apps, operating systems, videoconferencing platforms, social networks and devices used both in the industrial and private sectors. They are followed by the Finance sector – from banking institutions to insurance companies to cryptocurrency platforms – which, with 81 phenomena reported, doubles the events compared to the 2020 quarter, and the Public Administration in slight decline (-6%).
In the first three months of the year, the interest of hackers in the Healthcare sector is growing again, still in check with the third wave of the pandemic, which increases by ten units compared to the final three months of 2020. To this is added a level of criticality of the attacks that goes far beyond the simple economic damage or the violation of privacy; more and more often we are faced, in fact, with the concrete risk of paralysis of the affected system (whether it is industrial production or healthcare). The greatest damage done by criminals remains data theft, with 70% of cases between January and March, while the subtraction of money, in any case up by 40%, occupies the second position. In third place, personal data breaches, down by about 10% compared to the last quarter of 2020. Finally, a strong sign of growth can be seen in the practices that make a portal unavailable, the so-called defacement, which records a + 40% compared to the October-December 2020 quarter.
Among the techniques most exploited by cyber-criminals phishing-social engineering continues to excel with about 60% of cases – almost double compared to the last quarter of 2020 – particularly striking distracted users or with little knowledge of the methods of solicitation by e-mail or social network. They follow i malware, which aim to steal sensitive information, mainly through the spying on users’ banking activities. On the third step of the podium also the techniques with which the attackers exploit known vulnerabilities.
The number of devices exposed on the network decreased in the first quarter of the year: from almost 8 million in the previous quarter, to around 7.25 million in the first three months of 2021. Specifically, IoT devices decrease by 8% compared to the last quarter of 2020, as well as devices without secure authentication protocols (7% less than at the end of 2020) and industrial ones (-10%). Among the latter, however, the report shows a countertrend a growth of
Plc (programmable logic controller), devices used in industrial automation, still poorly protected.
“Despite the overall decrease, it remains the number of devices connected to the Internet in Italy is high and many are unprotected or authentication protocols – Raguseo comments. If we think, for example, that many of these could be functional to provide an essential service, their malfunction could have important consequences, especially in the case of healthcare systems or clinical software. “In addition to the report, on the Exprivia website www.exprivia.it There is also a list of courses organized for training in the field of IT security and risk management.